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It’s difficult to believe that simple sunflower seeds can arouse contradictory feelings. But they do. The simplest the idea, the strongest the impact if there is a deep reason under it. Weiwei’s Sunflower seed installation at the Tate Gallery provokes, in the controversy of being made by real seed or by porcelain, a strange feeling to those walking over it.

Chinese artist Weiwei’s Sunflower seed installation at Tate Gallery, this last October didn’t pass unnoticed. If you approach the installation from the entrance, the view is of a beach-like carpet but then, if you walk over it and take a closer look, you realize that what is under your feet is not sand, but seeds. Moreover, once you overcome the horrible sensation of walking over food, Weiwei gives then another turn of the screw. The seeds are not real seeds but tiny pieces of hand-made porcelain, more than 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds. Tiny pieces that together made up a whole beach with uncountable sand grains. I don’t know if the sensation of walking over food was worse than realizing that I was stepping over the result of the work of so many people. I admit it. Weiwei knows how to give a punch in the weakest part of our Western consciousness and at the same time leave us flabbergasted with China proportions. His true art is how he aroused all these contradictory feelings with such simplicity. With simple materials such as sunflower seeds, porcelain and the labor of more than a thousand craftsmen.